Saturday, February 28, 2015

That was the difference between Nova Scotia playing on and going home.

Any way you slice it, it's a hard thing to stomach and I'm sure the CCA Curling Canada was none to happy about seeing this result, a kind of perfect storm of bad possibilities.

On Friday, PEI defeated Nova Scotia in the final game of the pre-qualifying round robin, creating a circular win-loss record. That brought into play the first tiebreaker which was the totals of the pre-game draws to the button.

Before each game, one team member threw two shots -- an in-turn and an out-turn -- with the total distance recorded. The two game total was registered and when all the cyphering was done, Nova Scotia came third, just a lousy two centimetres behind Yukon.

As a result, PEI and Yukon will play in today's final with the winner moving into the main field. Nova Scotia will head home. For the first time in the Brier's history, there won't be a Bluenoser team in the Brier. And they'll face the same task again next year. N.S. skip Glen MacLeod told CBC.ca it was a tough loss to swallow.

It's hard to digest the change and there is understandably outrage from the curling folks in Nova Scotia.

If PEI was to lose today to Yukon, there would be equal frustration from the folks in that province.

But there would also be jubilation from the folks in Whitehorse where it would mark the first Brier for a team representing just the Yukon as opposed to the Territories.

The funny thing about this change is that judging from social media response, which understandably really isn't a perfect way of measuring things, it isn't popular with curlers and it isn't popular with fans.

For fan response, just go on Twitter. Or Facebook. I have yet to see a positive response to this situation.

That same CBC.ca article had a quote from Jean-Michel Menard saying he was now in favour of the 14-team format used at the Junior, where rinks are divided into pools. He said he wasn't a fan of that at first but thinks it's better than relegating teams.

I have to agree. I wasn't a fan of pools for a number of reasons. The primary one is that not every player plays everyone else. But the more I think about it, the more I think it's an improvement over relegation.

First is that every team gets to play. Second is that -- finally -- the Page Playoff System would be used the way it was intended when it was created.

Right now, the cut is deep and still bleeding. To be sure, no one likes change.

Friday, February 27, 2015

So here's a scenario that the CCA Curling Canada -- or any curling fan -- probably doesn't want to see. But it's possible a team could be eliminated from the pre-qualifier by a draw to the button. So far, Yukon defeated PEI and lost to Nova Scotia. The Bluenosers beat Yukon. If PEI defeated Nova Scotia in the game this afternoon, then the there will be a circular tie. The tiebreaker? The pre-game draws to the button. Prior to each game a member of the team throws an in-turn and and out-turn with the combined distance to the button being recorded. Here's what's happened so far.

Game 1

Yk 20.8

PEI 25.1

Game 2

Yk 97.5

NS 23.7

So Yukon's total is pretty high. It has to hope that Nova Scotia beats PEI, in which case Nova Scotia and Yukon go to the final. If PEI wins, it has to hope that one of the two messes up its draws to the button.

Terry Jones of the Edmonton Sun recounts the opening game of the pre-qualifying between P.E.I. and Yukon, describing it as sad. And hard to argue with him. Two teams that have won their region/province battling it out in front of almost no one, with no ceremony or even introductions.

And kudos go to Jeff Mackinnon of the Calgary Herald for putting in print what social media has been calling this event -- the "Prior." And he tells the story of how the PEI team just made it to Calgary in time for its game.

Wednesday, February 25, 2015

He has trouble using the word, but Jeff Stoughton announced on Twitter that he is calling it a career.
The three-time Brier winner and two-time world champ said the time is right for him to step away and perhaps seek off-ice opportunities to stay close to the game.

Well it's time! Stepping back from the game, that darn R word is just to hard to say! Thx to all but mostly thank you to my family! #awesome

I'd think that probably means he's hoping to do move to TV, but if so, that field is a bit crowded right now. Mike Harris and Kevin Martin are all over Sportsnet and Russ Howard is locked in at TSN. However, if there's a second feed at TSN as reports indicate, maybe Stoughton could join the second team.

In any case, Stoughton's retirement (there, I said it if he won't), marks the end of a tremendous career. As a curler Stoughton was exceptional and was part of the Big Three --along with Martin and Glenn Howard -- that dominated their era. He was impressive with a number of different lineups and when he was on, he was virtually unbeatable.

The Winnipeg product will play two more events -- one in Grand Prairie and the Players Championship in Toronto, assuming he qualifies.

As a journalist covering the game, Stoughton was always a pleasure to talk to. He was accommodating, a good quote and win or lose, always prepared to stand in front of the microphones. Classy is the word that comes to mind when I think about Stoughton.

A little late with this news but the TV
ratings are in for the Scotties Tournament of Hearts and it is impressive.

OK, it’s actually beyond impressive, into
the WOWZA category.

Take a look at some of these numbers:

** More than seven million different Canadians
watched some part of the championship. With a population of approximately 35
million that’s one-fifth of every last person in this country.

** The average audience for the entire tournament
was 566,000, which is massive considering many of the broadcasts were on in the
middle of the day, traditionally a low viewing time.

** The final attracted 1.05 million viewers –
going up against the powerhouse Academy Awards. That’s up 15 per cent over last
year. It should be noted that last year came on the heels of the Olympics so
there was probably some burnout in curling-watching.

Now Saturday’s Hockey Night in Canada was
the top sports show of the week (2.2 million), but after that curling ruled the
charts. Compare it to things like the Daytona 500 (500k), the NHL outdoor game
with the Kings vs. Sharks (also 500k), or the Leafs at the Hurricanes (another
500k) and you see the power that curling has.

You can probably expect similar number for
next week’s Brier too, which, by the way, will experiment with showing two
games from the same draw at the same time, using TSN’s five channel feed.

It does bring into question how these growing numbers will affect ticket sales as the CCA and host committees are trying to find ways to get bums in seats.

Sunday, February 15, 2015

That's why it's tough to accept the new qualification system for the men's and women's national championships, the first of which wrapped up yesterday at the Scotties in Moose Jaw. Northern Ontario's Tracy Horgan advanced, Kerry Galusha and Sarah Koltun are done.

Take nothing away from the two teams from the North, but it's hard to imagine that a rink from either territory (as well as Nunavut) will appear in many future Scotties or Brier. They don't have the means or resources to play competitively on a consistent basis against the best in the rest of the land. I fear for these two and other have-not regions in the coming years.

In my world, a Scotties or Brier without the Territories, is not worthy.

To no one's surprise, the classy Galusha took the high road after being bounced from play, as Mike Koreen reported in the Sun chain of papers.

Saturday, February 14, 2015

A fascinating piece in today's National Post from Sean Fitz-Gerald about the changing culture at the top of the game. He looks at how curling's rise as an Olympic sport has come with a cost -- the soul of the what used to be a friendly sport.

Tuesday, February 10, 2015

The teams have been declared and the stakes
determined. After years of discussion, several petitions and even some
protests, it’s finally time for the first national curling pre-qualifying.

Clearly, this is a turning point for the
men’s and women’s national championships. (For the most part here, I’m going to
use the Brier as the example but the Scotties is affected equally of course.)

As most fans of the Brier know, this will
be the first year that one province and/or territory gets to sit out.

That means that just one of Peter Burgess
(NS), Adam Casey (PEI) or Bob Smallwood (Yukon) will play beyond the
min-round-robin set up for the final-spot in the 12-team field.

The other two will be sent home,
provincial/territorial champs without the opportunity to play in the Brier.

Nunavut had the chance to send a team to
this dogfight but chose to opt out.

This little event may end up being more
pressure packed than the big show. How’d you like to head back home being
forever known as the first provincial/territorial champion who didn’t play in
the Brier.

This pre-qualifying came about because the
CCA and its members deemed it necessary to give equal access to all national
championships to all members. So rather than one entry for the three northern
territories, there are now three. Since that was happening, the powers that be
also added Team Canada to the men’s field and Northern Ontario to the women’s.

And if there is one good thing about this change, it's that there will now be two battles going on as the round-robin nears its end: one for top spot and one to stay out of the relegation.

Now I understand why the CCA did this. It
has to represent everyone equally. For them, the status quo just wasn’t going
to cut it.

The fact that there are more curling clubs
within 15 minutes of where I live than in all of Nunavut (a grand total of
three) is inconsequential. If you start getting into a numbers game, you can’t
win. You can’t base entries on number of clubs or curlers.

Or can you? When it comes to the other end
of the spectrum, having a large curling population, that’s exactly what is
done. Ontario has two teams in large part because it is the most populated
curling province. It’s not the only reason, but it is the primary one.

But if you live in the North, why should
you be forced to travel at great cost, using up a great time commitment to
another territory to battle for a spot that every other region gets on its own?

If you want to hear wild stories, listen to
those of the teams that represented the Territories in past Briers about these
territorial playoffs – tens of thousands of dollars, long flights, crazy setups
and more. And when these were over, one team went home broken-hearted.

If I lived in Whitehorse I’d want my own
territory to have an entry. Same if I was in Yellowknife.

See? That’s why it’s hard to fault the CCA.
What do they tell those curlers? That they’re less important than the ones in
PEI or Alberta?

Now I can only imagine what it will be like
for those teams that have been a part of the Brier field for a long time, that don’t
make it into the main event. Not to mention all the curlers in their regions.

It will be tough to be a curler in, say,
Charlottetown or Halifax to watch the Brier or Scotties and know that your
province isn’t represented.

Nova Scotia has been in every Brier since
1927. What if they aren’t there this time?

It might be especially tough for young
curlers to have players to look up to. When I was growing up and curling,
seeing a guy wearing a Purple Heart was exciting. Knowing that he played in the
Brier was special.

What if, say, PEI goes the next five Briers
without getting into the main field? Who are the young curlers going to look up
to?

Understandably, the curling community in
the have-not provinces is not happy about this change. There have been lots of
protests and petitions but they’ve had no impact. And so change is what we
have.

The Brier field has changed numerous times
over the years. From 1927-31, there were cities represented – Toronto and
Montreal. In the first Brier, which had just eight rinks, one team represented
all of Western Canada. (Northern Ontario, it should be pointed out, has been
represented in every Brier).

B.C. and PEI joined the party in 1936,
Newfoundland and Labrador in ’51 and the combined Territories came on board in
1975 (going 8-3!).

So the lineup has changed many times, but
it’s always been by addition, not subtraction (with the exception of Montreal
and Toronto).

The Brier has also changed in other ways. It’s
become an event of haves and have-nots. Only five times since 2000 has a team
from outside Manitoba, Ontario and Alberta won the title. In that same period,
there has never been a playoff without one of those provinces playing.

So maybe it really doesn’t matter if these
bottom-feeding provinces aren’t around anyway?

But it will because miracles do happen.
Jack MacDuff proved that. To a lesser extent, so did Mark Dacey.

One of the other aspects is that it appears
this championship is not going to be the cash cow that it once was. The days of
250,000 fans over a week are gone; an aging fan base and the excellent
television coverage have done that.

What does this have to do with the field?
Well an obvious solution would be to have 14 teams in the field and have more
draws or even possibly more sheets where the ice size permits.

But organizers want to make this event
shorter, not longer. See how the Calgary Flames enjoy being out of their rink
for 10 or 12 days this year.

As well, the cost to rent these buildings,
to stage them, to put in and keep the ice, to have enough volunteers, to keep
the patch going. . . is huge and adding an extra day or more time simply isn’t
going to happen with the dropping revenues.

The biggest problem with this change is
that it really cuts to the fabric of what’s made the Brier successful. It was
started by the folks at Macdonald Tobacco as a way to build the nation. It’s no
secret that the cigarette company spent oodles trying to get every province to
send a team. To get Quebec involved, it had to buy all the local curling clubs
stones because they were using irons back in those days. It also made sure that
the Brier was hosted at least once in every province.

And because of that, this event grew. It
rivalled the Grey Cup as the biggest celebration of Canada through sports. In my
opinion what made it better than the football finale was that every part of the
country was represented and involved, both on and off the course.

That won’t happen any more. Someone who has
been there is going to be left out and that changes everything.

For me, status quo works. It’s not popular
for the northerners, I understand, but the fact that Nunavut didn’t send a team
(this isn’t the first competition where this has happened by the way) tells me
they simply aren’t ready for this. Giving them an entry they don’t want doesn’t
make much sense. The CCA would be better off trying to develop the skills of
players there and in other parts of the North first. Perhaps create a Northern
Championship with multiple teams from the three territories.

I also don’t think the Brier needs a Team
Canada. To me, that cheapens an entry. Let’s not forget that Team Canada was
instituted in the Scotties because that event needed a marquee team to use in
marketing. Women’s curling wasn’t what it is today.

Men’s curling doesn’t need that. It does
work in that it provides one more quality rink into the field; a province can
have two entries now. But there’s enough quality at the top anyway. The Canada
Cup

and the Grand Slam are that; the Brier is a national championship. Or at
least it was.

Now I’m not so sure. Change is never easy
no matter where it happens. This seems especially harsh and it will be
interesting to see how it plays out.

He was the last of the Big Three left standing but after Kevin Martin retired last year and Glenn Howard was knocked off early in the Ontario playdowns, it was just Jeff Stoughton. The 11-time Manitoba champion, who is 51, made it as far as the semi-finals in Manitoba before being sent to the Patch by the McEwen rink.

Ontario will have a Howard going to the
Brier, but that would be Scott, son of Glenn, who was part of Mark Kean’s
victorious rink. Kean knocked off John Epping in the provincial final as MikeKoreen recounted in the Toronto Sun.